Monday, 26 November 2007

I blogged last week about the ELL RSG meeting last Tuesday, and my contributions on the subject of parachute games and songs and rhymes that can be used for active learning. However, other people offered ideas too and I was reminded of one of them when I received an email via MFL resources Yahoo group.

One contributor was Sara Vallis from City Road School in Birmingham shared some ideas from a course she had attended in Besançon.FlySwat and Lamb Darts - also known as Lamb Slam - where two people compete to be the first to swat or slam the appropriate item of vocabulary on the board. Perhaps not one for the IWB!Chair OXO where you physically play Noughts and Crosses with vocabulary items to be named or questions to be answered on each chair before the square is 'won' and the team representative can occupy the chair. I liked this alternative to OXO on the board with pictures as I usually play it.Hot/cold - Hide the teddy somewhere in the room whilst one person is outside, then the volunteer returns and has to find the teddy, guided by the rest of the class repeating a word or phrase loudly(for hot) or quietly(for cold) depending on how close the seeker is to finding the teddy. You could use any vocabulary or phrase; you could even use it to practise opposites with two words being used eg grande for hot and pequeño for cold.

Sara also suggested a song in French to practise body parts - as an alternative to Heads Shoulders Knees and Toes! Jean Petit qui danse is a sweet little song about a man who dances with various parts of his body. Sara used a downloadable track to show us how the song went, and yesterday I recieved an email in which MarieFrance Perkins mentioned the same song -

"When revising the body this is the song that I always with my students, they love it. I have now found it on Youtube. A good one to get out of breath and tire them out!!!"Here's the video -